Local Whitewater Racing Team Takes National Title
With Strong Individual Finishes!
For the first time in US history the National Champion Whitewater club is not from the East Coast. This past weekend the local Red River Racing Team became the first whitewater kayak club ever to take the National Championship Club Trophy west of the Mississippi. The National Championships for Whitewater Slalom were held on the beautiful and powerful class III-IV rapids at the American Sports Center International based in McHenry, Maryland. This is the new home course for the most dominant kayak club in the US, the Bethesda Center of Excellence; however, since this whitewater course was just recently constructed, the Red River Racing Team was able to gain advantage by taking several trips to the site.
“This is a really challenging course. It has some tight technical drops combined with some really powerful water. Because the course is artificially designed it does not have anything to break up the current on the bottom of the channel like a natural river would, so it has a lot of speed” said Red River athlete, 1996 Olympian, and Olympic Outdoor Center founder Ben Kvanli.
The National Team award is the overall result of some fantastic individual athletic performances! The club had top finishers in half of the available classes: Carolyn Peterson of Austin, Texas won the National Championship in the C1W class which the Red River Racing Team swept with Colleen Hickey in second, and Haley Thompson in third. The local team also dominated the C-2 competition with Rebecca Moore of League City, TX and Ben Kvanli of San Marcos, TX winning C-2 mixed, and Mark Poindexter of Austin teaming up with Ben in the C-2 Men’s event taking out two top national team members from Atlanta. Olympian Heather Corrie won the women’s kayak class with Michelle Kvanli chasing her down for the Bronze. Rebecca Moore also competed in C-1W, her first senior level competition since winning the silver medal at Jr. Olympics this summer.
Rebecca stated, “ I got a ton of experience and a Gold Medal! I am really excited about our workouts this winter and looking forward to the Junior Olympics and Junior Trials next summer!”
She is not the only one excited and intent on training. Future Red River Racing stars Matt and Jennifer Fritz of Dallas, Texas improved their personal bests by competing in the C-1 and C1-w classes respectively. Full results are available at: http://slalomnationals.blogspot.com.
“I think we really shocked the rest of the slalom racing community!” said Mark Poindexter. “Most of the time when you go to competitions and people find out that you are from Texas, they look at you funny and ask “Whitewater? In Texas? Really? Where do you train?” Now, we have not only done well individually, but also taken the Club Trophy. This Trophy has never left the East Coast. I think we are all fired up right now, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for Texas racing!”
In fact, San Marcos is fast becoming an important place to train and compete. This past winter, The Red River Racing Team hosted an Olympic Team Trials Qualifier at Rio Vista Falls Park in San Marcos where many top level competitors came to begin their season and try to qualify for a chance to race in the 2008 Olympic Team Trials and Pan American Championships. Heather Corrie, Pablo McCandless, and Scott Parsons started their year paddling in San Marcos and went on to qualify and then compete in this year’s Olympic Games.
Michelle Kvanli made her debut last weekend in the Women’s Kayak class with a bronze medal finish following three years of surgery and physical therapy after an accident nearly ended her paddling career in 2005. “My goal was to be competitive again one year out from my surgery, and Dr. Berkhart of the San Antonio Orthopedic Group said that it was possible. There have been times over the past few years that this seemed like a very distant horizon, because it took us years to be able to even consider the surgery as a possibility, and then Dr. Berkhart tightened me up so much that I didn’t know if I would ever move again, much less be competitive again.” Michelle started paddling again in January when Dr. Berkhart and his physical therapy team told her that she could not hurt the work that they had done. She trained first on the flatwater course behind her house, and then at the Rio Vista Whitewater Park at the Olympic Outdoor Center on the San Marcos River. She made three trips to ASCI totaling two months of training over the past year.
“They didn’t cut us any slack on the course. They took already challenging whitewater and added some moves that were tricky. I mean nearly 30 percent of the competitors flipped over at gate one! I’ve never seen so many wipeouts in a race, much less at the first gate on the course.”
“It was really neat to be able to compete again, and then to be able to break into the medals. This was the first race that I have been able to truly race in since 2005 due to my shoulder. I had so much fun, and can’t wait to give it my all at this year’s up coming National Team Trials!” Said Michelle Kvanli.
The Red River Racing Team is a 501 c-3 non-profit team based locally out of San Marcos, TX. The Team raises funding by teaching canoeing, kayaking, and water safety to the local public through the David and Debbie Power Olympic Outdoor Center in San Marcos, Texas!
Whitewater Racing in Texas? The question has been answered with a resounding yes! These intrepid paddlers took on one of the Nations Top Whitewater Slalom competitions and came out on top! The Red River Racing Team placed first in the overall club competition at the National Championships making it the first time ever that the award has not gone to an East Coast team!